St. Guinefort's Mercy
Excerpt compiled from different reports given by Federation military personnel. "We was all pretty durn shocked when we first saw it, mmhm. I swear if'n I hadn't seen it wit' m'own eyes I'da never believed it. There it stands, one'a them big dwarven projects, St. Guinefort's Mercy Chil'ren's Hospital, right smack dab inna middle of one'a th' worst Thor-damned hellholes y'can imagine. I mean that lit'rally, mindja. Legions'a the Hells west, two Gobbo armies dukin' it out east, an' north 'n south? Damn hordes'a Rotters, milluns strong. Well one day ol' Gunderson down in OPRAT- that's our sat-link what lets us see basically errything from space like we was on the ground- starts hollerin' like he jes' found his wife in bed with a whole durn gravball team. By time I got down there, th' LT is out cold onna floor from Gunderson knockin' his ass out, and there's Gunderson overridin' alla th' base's screens with footage. Kids. Kids errywhere. Hundreds of'em. Not five minutes ago all we'd seen was corpses, but we'd only seen grown-up corpses. Littered all o'er th' place like a durn horror movie scene. Then there's kids, jes'.. Comin' outta th' woodwork- well, stonework, y'git mah meanin'. Erry race we'd knowed of 'bout then- humans, halfies, dwarves, couple elves, dracs, I'd swear on mah momma's headstone I saw a couple'a little no-vim-fal round too, an' at least a half dozen half-gobbos an' a lutrosa kiddy. We was shocked summin' fierce, let me tell you. Didn't have us a clue what we was gon' do.. Weren't no way in all the Hells we could fish'em out. Saddenin', really.. But ol' Gunderson, an' all'a th' other boys 'n girls 'n whatnots in intel, an' most'a our spiritual folks, said they was gonna keep a real close eye on'em as long as they damn well could." First Sergeant Joseph Robert (Joey-Bob) Rhyzuhk, 3099th Regiment, Earth Federation Army, 998 S.V. "First year was the worst, man. Every request to do something, anything to help those kids? Denied left and right. TacCOM said it was too risky. They were right, but fucked if we didn't almost mutiny anyway. Only reason we didn't is 'cause they said we could keep an eye on'em 24/7. Anyway. First year, that was the saddest. Every day we'd see the kids filing out, puzzled and lost, surrounded by hundred foot tall three foot thick walls of ceramcrete, oblivious to the world around them. Parents were all gone, dead- executed by the fucking Legion, the one made of demons and devils. All the Pharoanic followers, especially the Anubians? Mad enough to shit a broken mechanoid, man. Every free hour, sitting in front of the screens, praying to Anubis and Bast and Isis to do something for those tykes. Maybe they did.. Those kids didn't budge for fuckall. One day we see a small group of rotters, bangin' away at the walls- must have smelled the meat inside, I guess. Anyway there's big half-orc kid- we call him Tony Montana 'cause of his hair and this scar across his face- on top of the wall patrollin', he scurries back down at mach 2 and gets every other big kid he can round up situated on the wall. They had guns- stuff they'd scavenged from their fallen parents- but they didn't use'em. They just worked together and dropped whatever suitably heavy or sharp debris they could until every last one of the corpsey bastards stopped twitchin'. Fuckin' hilarious." 2nd Lt. Montgomery Cliff, 3099th Regiment, Earth Federation Army, 999 S.V. "When I clocked in for my shift on watchin' Mercy, I just about shat my coworker's pants. Kids laying all over the yard, sick as hell. The healthy ones wrapped up in whatever they could to keep'em from catching any sickness, trying to take care of them. Had to be about.. Thirty or so. No shortage of causes for all that, but we couldn't get any medical supplies whatsoever to them. But that's not the worst thing, oh no. Worst thing was when we saw Tony Montana and a couple of other bigger kids rounding them up and getting them dressed- for a moment, and fuck me for even thinking it, we feared they were going to throw them out the gates. I must have gone through two packs of smokes when I saw this was not the case. ...Then I cracked open a third when I saw them heading out as a group. All the sick kids, a bunch of the healthier ones. They started marching north- one of the guys overlayed the Colonel Bogey March song to it, was kinda cool- a good twenty clicks, pulling wheelbarrows and shit full of guns and weapons with'em. Right towards a huge mob of dumb-dumbs, had to be thousands of them. Minds, blown. What the Hell were they doing?! What were they thinking?! Why were they marching to their deaths?! Once they were about five hundred meters away, the gang split off into smaller groups. The Rotters were all crowded around a fucking pet store. Animals inside must have still been alive, must have run out of food and water, and were crying for help.. Attracted a horde. But the previous owner locked the place up too tight, Dumb-dumbs couldn't get in. So the kids all quietly sneak around and set themselves up in strategic places- on roofs, in a couple dilapidated buildings, etc.- and waited. Tony Montana raises his hand.. And brings it down. The kids open fire and start roaring their little heads off. The rots turned and started trying to get at them. We didn't understand- did they hope to kill all of the damn things? They sure as hell couldn't get out now, not that we saw.. Then we see a small line of kids sneaking around back behind the store, cracking open the barricades with crowbars and whatever else they could, with grenadiers watching their backs. Deadheads never even turned around. But then.. Then things started getting bad. One of their little makeshift barricades? The Rotters tore it down. They started filing into this one apartment building where most of the sick kids had holed up. It.. ...All we saw was one tubby dwarvish kid with measles, a grenade in each hand, hanging out of a window. He leapt down with a smile on his face.. And.. And then he was gone. ..Took out a good hundred of those bastards with him, though.." Long pause, sniffling. "An-anyway. After that.. The other kids vanished. None of the ones in that apartment came out.. Once all the dumb-dumbs had crammed themselves inside, Tony rolls a jeep- I guess he hotwired it?- in front of the door to box them in. He's got this real stern look on his face, tears streaming down his cheeks. The kids who'd gone into the store all quickly filed out.. The wheelbarrows once filled with guns and explosives were now mostly filled with cages. Dogs, cats, mice, some fish, all sorts of things. Old and young alike. Some of them were dead, forced to cannibalize the others, but the kids didn't seem to care. They emptied the whole, fucking, store. And left." Long pause, deep breaths. "When they got back to the hospital, there was this one little girl.. Such a burning in her eyes, adorable little draconid wearing what was once a pretty pink dress. Once everyone was inside she started screaming at Tony something fierce, beating her tiny fists on his legs, and there he was sobbing like a baby and we think apologizing. No sound, after all, just video. Two hours later she's hugging him and bawling as well, and he's pounding his fists into the ground and hitting himself until she stops him. Then she pats him on the head, and starts ordering all the little kids around. We'd never known who was in charge until then- we assumed it might be an elderly adult who never ventured outside, maybe one of the older kids. And then here's this freakin'.. Tiny ass runt, miniscule even by drac standards, barking orders like a sergeant and everyone is scrambling to get shit done. Five minutes later every single chaplain is in front of the commander- who's behind me- and Father Lescott, head of the Valhallans, is very calmly telling the commander he will make a supply drop, or they will use his face for tap dancing practice. In clogs. Cleated clogs. Two days later, we got to make our first supply drop, damn near lost the plane doing it, but we did it.. We did it." ' Lt. Sasha Albright, 3099th Regiment, Earth Federation Intelligence, 999 S.V.' "It were after the first supply drop that lifing conditions in der Hospital improved dramatically. We very nearly overload the plane. So many things we wish to send! Farming goods, medicine, ammunition for veapons, toys, clothes, so many things. Base commander says, nein! Only important things, ja? Survival first, he promises we make a Christmas drop at year's end. This vas two days after Lt. Albright shows us that children now haf animals to care for, unt haf lost.. At least thirty people. We had to do something, ja? If command had said no, we'd have shot Herr Kommandant unt gone AWOL. Smart man, knew when to let scheisse slide. Plane goes out, very nearly is shot down twelve times. Everyone breathes sigh of relief as supply crates land in courtyard of hospital. Plane comes home safe unt sound, though bit shot up, but is okay, ja? It is a great big party, even though our last mission was a miserable failure. The whole base is watching screens, watching as der kinder pry open crates unt finding treasure trove of good stuff. Books, mostly. Medical books, farming books, anything to teach them critical survival information. Unt supplies! Ammunition, medicines, tools, tiny machines. Five minutes, unt they are working like a colony of furious ants! Hours on end. Quality of health goes up in a matter of days. Sick children are being treated, animals are being trained to kill pests, methods for catching unt purifying rainwater, recycling of waste.. They turn hospital into a veritable fortress inside of a week. It is a thing of beauty, it is glorious! Everyone is happy for a time. The children begin to post watchers, hoping to see more of our planes, but.. We cannot send them, not yet. But we are preparing for this, unt waiting! Unt when winter holidays come, Herr Kommandant keeps his promises, unt another supply run is made. Blankets, toys, more ammo, more supplies. The plane crashes just before it returns home, but all pilots unt crew escape safely, so it is not considered terrible loss. Unt then.. Unt then we see der kinder's faces light up. Everyone is crying unt drinking unt cheering as we watch them open the crates. I cannot remember a time in my life when I have seen so much joy amidst so much slaughter.." Airman''' Hans Mueller, 3099th Regiment, Earth Federation Air Corps, 1000 S.V.' "We'd been watching St. Guinefort's Mercy for about three years, now. By this point, we'd been authorized to televise it for other regiments, and refugee camps. Hell of a move, really. Didn't nobody bitch or whine about how bad they were getting it when they saw these little kids surviving and thriving after three years in that deathtrap. It was an inspiration to pretty much everyone. If these kids can make it, so can we! By that point, everybody was trying to figure out ways to help- even the friggin' jarheads were offering us men and supplies squirreled away or stolen from the enemy to drop to those kids. But.. We'd gotten lucky with supply drops the first two times. Seriously, damn lucky. The next five were total failures, then one made it, then three failed. We had to stop after that.. Just couldn't spare the birds anymore, not with all those dirty Rebs and Gobbos filling the skies with shrapnel the second they saw us. I had this one leatherneck mechanoid, name of Cartwright, he came forth with a plan to move them all out through Terria's sewer system. The brass turned it down though- nobody thought it was feasible. Too many things could go wrong, 'specially since the oozes had been multiplying in massive numbers from all the shit that went their way. So.. Yeah. Still as powerless as we were three years ago. All we could do was watch, and hope our enemies turned on each other more than they did us so we could slip something through once in a while. As the living conditions in the hospital improved, we began having hope that everyone would just pass them over. Stupid hope, really.." ''Long pause. "A cold day mid-autumn, we picked up a small group of Creepers peering in through the cracks in the walls. The kids tried the same tactics they'd done before- drop shit on'em, or shoot'em if they could- but these were creepers, not dumb-dumbs. They ran off, and waited until dark. When the kids had gone to sleep, they started trying to work themselves in through the cracks. One figured out that the cheap plaster they'd covered one of the holes with wasn't the stablest thing in the world, sat there for six hours with a claw hammer picking away until the whole damn thing crumbled apart. Unfortunately for it, it got caught on one of the bones the kids used as a sort of mortar, dumb bastard. All the other rots were right behind it, trying to push him through, but he was stuck good. Funny as Hell. One of the dogs came trotting out of the main hospice, started barking its head off. Woke up everybody I think, all the kids came out with little lanterns and flashlights, just watched the damn thing. The little drac runt began directing the kids- still didn't know her name after all this time, wouldn't be till a month later we found her name was Amy Ironback after the One knows how much paperwork we sorted through in our off hours- and one of the older girls picks up a makeshift halberd, made out of a broomstick and half a sharpened car bumper. She goes over to the wall, waits for Ironback's command.. Then executes it medieval-style. Cut it dead in half, then smashed its head like an overripe melon. Creepers might be bright, but clearly not all that bright. The kids started winding down a bit, began organizing to have a night watch drive them off. But.. The Creepers figured out their buddy was dead. Instead of trying to push him through, they yanked what was left of him out- and the obstruction he'd gotten caught on- and started flooding in. I ain't too proud to admit I pissed myself in fear, watching as the Creepers slowly poured in. The kids by this point were taking up firing positions, and got most of them. Except one. One of the bastards, while they were focused on a different body, managed to go up and tackle Tony Montana. This older dog who had, not five minutes ago, been nursing her pups, suddenly tackles the zombie while it's trying to take off Tony's arm. The bitch tore that fucker to pieces. She didn't give a damn when it grabbed her by the throat teeth first, she just shredded it with her bare claws. But.. The damage was done. Tony and the dog.." '' Pause, sigh.'' "It's not their fault. They had no way of knowing- as far as they knew, just being bitten by a zombie was a death sentence. They didn't know you had to die first, and then you'd probably get back up. The rest of the night was people tending to Tony and the dog, several of the younger kids bawling and hugging onto them. Tony just has this big soft smile on his face the whole time.. And the dog, I think she knew what was coming. She gave kisses to everyone who came near her, staying near Tony the whole time, refusing to let her puppies nurse from her- she even nudged some of them off to the others- like.. Like she was trying to say "It's okay, I understand. Just take care of my babies." And then when morning came.. Tony and the dog lined up at the gate. Ironback gave him a gun, some food, some water, and a small box which we figured was medical supplies. Then the two marched right on out, without a whimper or looking back, even as the gates closed behind them. ...We lost track of them a couple miles into their journey, somewhere in one of the districts which had become a total warzone. None of us slept that night.. Had five guys that got section eighted, just wouldn't stop screaming at the screens. It never needed to happen.. They would have been just fine, as long as they didn't croak. ..Goddamned waste.." Major Miguel Dobson, 4082nd Regiment, Earth Federation Intelligence, 1002 S.V. "Most of the kids weren't kids anymore by the time I got transferred to this listening post. By this point, most were at least teenagers- y'know, halfway through puberty, 'cept the dwarven and half-elven kids mostly- and a couple of the human and drac kids we figured had to be at least 20. One girl was pregnant, that was a hell of a shock. Anyway, by that point? Most of the goblinoids who'd occasionally harrassed them were pacified- except they'd been replaced by a Kampftier slave army. Not just any slave army either, the Tuefel Hunde. These were hardass sons of bitches- and I mean that literally; all canidae types. Their leader was a psychotic bastard by the name of Rossenkrauntz. Even years later that names sends shivers down peoples' spines. I mean it's not like the Hunde had a choice in the matter- they were wired with freakin' bomb collars. Don't wanna be a good doggie? Boom. If you're lucky only you die, if not you take out some of your friends and splatter everyone with bits of yourself. The few kampies that some of our local religious crews had liberated who'd joined our ranks damn near had a total breakdown. They knew who these guys were- they weren't renowned for their generosity or habits of taking prisoners. The Hunder had set up a trench line about a mile away from the hospital, and fucked if it wasn't an impenetrable one. Every so often we'd try to send help but at that point, we were damn near in a full retreat ourselves- the Byzuran Mass and a bunch of rebel armies were hammering us hard when they weren't hammering each other. So for eight months I'm sitting there watching the Hunder try to ruin the Hospital. Except they couldn't. Place was a damn fortress, you'd have to bomb the site from orbit to do any real damage to it. These poor bastards didn't even have artillery pieces, just pure infantry. A gauss rifle barely made a dent in the foundations." Laughter. "See, the Hunder were one of the most feared slave armies. Nobody fucked with them long if they could, they were just too brutal and good at urban combat. But here's this one damn hospital staffed by a bunch of whelps dug in like a colony of ticks and they can't even get'em to budge. The kids took.. A lot of casualties, but only a couple of actual fatalities. The Hunder suffered thousands of losses- mostly from disease and fighting other armies, but they were getting whittled down hard. Then one day we see Rossenkrauntz popping up from the trenches carrying a white flag. The kids at the hospital couldn't see it, but we could- the kampies were concealing weapons and wrapping bandages over non-existent wounds. They were going to lure those kids out into a trap and butcher them all. We freaked out. Two guys tried to take over my radio station but the Commander himself beat them down. They didn't have any real comm equipment there anyway. They'd cannibalized it for parts when we dropped it off to them. So, as was so often the case, all we could do.. Was watch. And pray. The kids never came out, they made Rossenkrauntz and his chums come in. Heavy watch the whole time. Guns aimed from the walls, kids of various ages surrounding them with weapons. I think the Hunde were pretty damn shocked by what they saw. Then out comes Ironback, barely went up past Rossy's knee, and he looks like he just saw the face of a Seraph. He's so shocked by this tiny whelp coming out to greet him as an equal, as a commander, he actually gets on his hands and knees just so he can be eye-level with her. There wasn't a single shot fired, not a single weapon swung. Two hours into what we figured were negotiations- which the company shrink said was most likely less 'negotiation' and more the kampfs trying to parse what the hell they'd stumbled across, not professional soldiers but just a bunch of dirty, wounded children- we see the Hunder leave back for their lines. They stopped attacking the hospital for a good.. Three weeks. They made a few half-hearted shots at them, I guess to appease their masters, but when the next month started? The remains of the unit went back to the hospital. There were only four thousand left by this point. Funny thing is, the kids let'em right back in! The Hunder all lined up against the walls, and one by one the kids set themselves to removing the fucking bomb collars! Those tiny hands of theirs, combined with some technical manuals we'd dropped? They had the whole company freed in a matter of hours. The Hunder brought all their stuff with'em too- all their supplies, weapons, everything. We never needed to send them shit after that, they had everything they needed to keep them going for the next century, if need be. This was a huge thing! Not just for the kids, but for everyone everywhere! Kemono slaves had gotten freed from their bondage plenty of times before, but never a whole damn military unit. After we broadcasted that out on all channels? You had slave armies rebelling left and right. They never knew it, but those kids stirred up sooo much shit! It was awesome." Private First Class Elaine Schmitt, 8063rd Battalion, Earth Federation Marine Corps, 1008 S.V. "Twenty years. Twenty goddamn years. It was stupifying, you know? Twenty years after they freed those mutts, St. Guinefort's Mercy was still standing. They had an army now, and all the tools needed to stay alive for.. Hell, a century, minimum. Ohh their masters were pii-iiisss-ed. The people who'd 'owned' the Teufel Hunde sent all kinds of reprisals at the hospital, but nothing ever worked. Nothing could get through unless they were willing to risk ships, and they even did a couple times. Blew the bastards out of orbit." Long, boisterous laughter. "Idiots.. So anyway. War's taken its toll on the Hospital and its inhabitants, but they're still hanging on better than anyone could have hoped. At least.. Well, until the Legion fell. When the Inquisition sealed off that chunk of city? The rots had fewer enemies to worry about, I mean aside from the ones they were already bothering with. But the Legion's sealing gave them tons of room to spread out, and spread they did. For several years you had clever rippers who did nothing but lure invaders into traps so they could build up their personal armies. Most of these, once they'd reached a sufficient size, went after other big armies. Thor knows there were enough targets. But one army decided hey fuck that, we're gonna be different. They sniff out the survivors at the hospital and lay siege to it. Now obviously a siege won't work, not in a conventional sense, but rots don't fight like we do. They attacked from the south side, at the gates- the only way in or out. Then they just started.. Piling up. It's like the lead rip figured fuck it, either they'll run out of bullets or we'll build a ramp tall enough to walk up from our own dead. He sure had the manpower to do it- had to be at least four million of the damn things. Most of us figured, "Well.. It was a good run. Nobody could have done a better job than those kids did." But.." Pause, more boisterous laughter, "They still had an ace up their sleeve. They turned the whole damn compound into a goddamn trap- wired it with enough explosives and booby-traps to kill the Tarrasque, then they hopped into the sewers. The sewers! Only a few stayed behind; Rossenkrauntz and his elite soldiers. They held off the dead for almost an hour even as the damn things were flooding over the walls, until everyone but they had gotten into the sewers. Then they just.. Stopped. They all dropped their guns, sealed off the sewer entrance, and kicked back on the roof of the tallest building. Lit up cigarettes, clung to each other, just waiting for the timers to go off. Rossenkrauntz himself was sitting in a lawnchair, sipping at a beer, just staring up at the sky and smiling. If I didn't know better I'd swear he was staring at me.. Then this shit-eating grin appeared on his face. This "I get the last laugh, fuckers" kind of grin. And then the bombs went off. Didn't do much damage to the hospital itself, killed every fucking thing inside the compound though. And maaan there was a LOT inside by then! By day's end they must have taken out like, half a million of the damned things.. Odin bless that crazy son of a bitch. Heh." Aesirian Chaplain Arnold Fitzgerald, Earth Federation Special Operations, 1028 S.V. "We had no idea what happened to the survivors of Guinefort's Mercy for months. The way those massive sewer lines run under Telo-Haljr? The sheer complexity of everything? No telling where they might have gone. We all kept hoping to see them pop up somewhere, but between all the deadheads and oozes and every other nasty thing that was in those pipes, nobody expected anything to happen. Imagine, if you will, our pants-soiling surprise when a year after they all disappeared, a sealed manhole cover pops open not five feet from the commander's tent and people start climbing out. Filthy, bedraggled people. Almost shot them until one of the enlisted men starts screaming "Wait! That's them! The people from the broadcasts! They're from that hospital!" Holy shit, I don't think even the One has heard such cheering before. Everyone in the whole damn camp- and this was one of our larger refugee slash supply bases- starts helping them out. A whole damn army of medical personnel appears as though the Heavens themselves had willed them into existence and begins cleaning them up and giving them thorough inspections. And it's great! And.. And at the same time terrible.. Almost four hundred people died minutes after we had them cleaned up, they'd been in so many fights down in those shitholes and covered in filth so long and so often that their bodies couldn't handle the sudden lack of stress from not having diseases and infections to fight off day in and day out. Like the only thing keeping them alive was having something to fight. And then we pull out the star of the hour, Amy fucking Ironback herself, and she looks like she's won a knife-fight with the Reaper." Pause, shaky breath. "So many septic wounds.. Her tiny body was so overworked.. She didn't even feel pain anymore. She just laid there in her hospital bed, hanging onto life by the thinnest of threads, begging to know if everyone had gotten out. Two hours she laid there while they tried to save her life, until this massive brick of a mechanoid, some jarhead officer, Cartwright I think it was, comes up and kneels beside her. She reaches out and paws at his face, her eyes have failed her by this point. She's dying, and nobody can do anything about it. And then she grabs as much of this mechanoid's hand as she can and asks if everyone's gotten out okay. He replies that they have. Then she asks him to take care of everyone for her now that they're free and safe, and he swears to every god ever worshiped that he will.. And then she just lays back, still smiling as though she just won the lottery, and.. Fades away." Pause, cigarette being lit, "There was a week-long service held for that brave little runt.. I hear the Temple is going to officially saint her, and Rossenkrauntz too. Most of the kampftier that came in have asked if they can join our ranks, the life of a soldier is the only one they've ever known. I think the Inquisitors have been accepting more offers than we have, though.." Major Arthur Beauregard, Earth Federation Army, 1029 S.V. Terria Back to Main Page